York County Food Rescue finds housing

Director: Move could become permanent

ALFRED, Maine — York County Food Rescue, which was evicted from its home earlier this month, has found a temporary and possibly permanent residence in a vacant space at the county's former Emergency Management Agency building in Alfred.

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By Susan Morse

seacoastonline.com

By Susan Morse

Posted Mar. 30, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Susan Morse
Posted Mar. 30, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

ALFRED, Maine — York County Food Rescue, which was evicted from its home earlier this month, has found a temporary and possibly permanent residence in a vacant space at the county's former Emergency Management Agency building in Alfred.

York County commissioners and the Food Rescue officials are entering into a temporary release agreement for the building at 5 Swetts Bridge Road in Alfred, according to a released statement from the commissioners and County Manager Gregory Zinser. Talks will continue on a possible permanent lease arrangement, the statement said.

"We're very excited," Food Rescue Program Director Jodi Bissonnette said Friday. "We're moving the last of our stuff today. We'll have our first (food) distribution the second week in May. We're back up."

York County Food Rescue — which distributes free food to 47 food pantries and soup kitchens in the county including those serving residents in York, Kittery, Eliot and South Berwick — was under court order to vacate its Sanford warehouse on April 1, after receiving an eviction notice on March 14 from its landlord, Jagger Mill LLC.

The two parties could not come to a lease agreement for the space, according to Jagger Mill principal Brenda Scally of Saco. Food Rescue had been using the space at 199 Jagger Mill Road free of charge for about nine years.

According to Bissonnette, after word got out that Food Rescue needed a new home York County commissioners stepped up and offered the former Emergency Management building as storage space, as the food pantry explored two leads on other buildings in the Sanford area.

"We're working on future collaboration with (commissioners), we don't need the two other buildings," said Bissonnette, who confirmed the move. "I'm pretty sure this is working."

Commissioners are even helping with the move into the 5,000 square feet of warehouse and office space in the one-story metal building, she said. York County Emergency Management moved its offices into a renovated former York County jail in 2011.

The move has stressed Food Rescue for cash, Bissonnette said. They must hook up and pay for electricity and water, she said. Volunteers took apart the large freezers, she said, but state law requires that professionals put them back together.

Donations may be sent to York County Food Rescue, P.O. Box 863, Sanford, ME 04073.

York County Food Rescue gives up to 1,800 pounds of free food every month to each of the pantries and soup kitchens it serves, according to Bissonnette. In 2012, the organization gave away 1.2 million pounds of food to 67,592 families, she said.

The York Community Food Pantry, Footprints Food Pantry in Kittery and the South Berwick Community Food Pantry depend on Food Rescue for more than a third of the food each distributes, according to those working with the organizations.

"If it wasn't for them, it would be difficult for Footprints to survive," said Roland Fernald, president of the pantry's board of directors. Footprints serves Kittery, Kittery Point and Eliot.

Food Rescue could have stayed another month at its current location, but it would have had to pay $5,000 in rent, money the organization doesn't have, Bissonnette said.

The terms for a lease going forward was $2,000 a month for 9,000 square feet, according to Bissonnette and Scally. The nonprofit was also being asked to pay a third of the repair costs needed for the building, an amount Bissonnette estimated could cost $200,000.

Two other tenants in the building, Habitat for Humanity and Military Surplus for Homeless Veterans and Veterans in Need, also currently pay no rent. The veterans group is not being asked for rent going forward, according to Pete Maestre, who helps run the organization.

The building was formerly owned by York County Shelter Program of Alfred, which also operates a food pantry but is not affiliated with York County Food Rescue. When the shelter program sold the building to Jagger Mill in 2008, it held the mortgage in an agreement that stipulated the tenants could remain free of charge until the mortgage was paid, according to Scally and Joan Sylvester of the shelter program.

The mortgage was discharged Oct. 5, 2012, according to Scally, and documents were recorded with the York County Registry of Deeds in Alfred.